Revised Standard Version‘s “But” is too weak to introduce the second half of a major contrast with verse 18. The structure and content of verses 18-24 require something like Instead, “No!” (Barclay), or “On the contrary” (Biblia Dios Habla Hoy and Segond). Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente has “You, on the contrary.”

The series of eight items which follows recalls the list of 11.37, but here each item is introduced in the Greek by “and.” The use or omission of “and” in translation depends on what is most natural and forceful in the receptor language.

Mount Zion stands on its own as the first item in the list; a contrast with Mount Sinai is implied. Mount Zion is probably distinguished from the city of Jerusalem which is built on it. The words which follow show that both Zion and Jerusalem are understood in a symbolic sense. In some languages a title such as Mount Zion must be expressed as “mountain called Zion” or “mountain named Zion.”

The city of the living God is the second item. In some contexts the living God means “the God who gives life,” and this makes a good contrast with the reference to death in verse 20. The city of the living God and the heavenly Jerusalem are the same. Biblia Dios Habla Hoy has “the city of the living God, that is, the heavenly Jerusalem”; and Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente repeats “but” in “but the city of the living God, but Jerusalem of Heaven.” It may be better to put the heavenly Jerusalem first, in order to make it clear as early as possible in the sentence that symbolic language is being used. As in the phrase heavenly country in 11.16, it may be wise to translate the heavenly Jerusalem as “the Jerusalem which is in heaven.” If one introduces only a qualitative adjective such as heavenly, a reader might think that the earthly Jerusalem is to be regarded as like heaven.

The third item is the thousands of angels. Thousands is literally “ten thousands.” New English Bible and Traduction œcuménique de la Bible use the literary equivalent “myriads”; Jerusalem Bible “millions”; and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “with its many thousand angels.” In any case the number is not intended to be precise. In order to relate the phrase with its thousands of angels to the previous statement about the heavenly Jerusalem, it may be best to translate “the Jerusalem in heaven, where there are the thousands of angels.” In some languages a literal rendering of with suggests only accompaniment, and of course the angels are not accompanying Jerusalem.

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Letter of the Hebrews. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .